"Bruno Ciari" Primary School,
Cocomaro di Cona (Ferrara, Italy) - Our "counting-out rhymes
" research project
Competition for inventing
counting-out rhymes
While
involved in language games,
children at our school
started to recognise and identify the structures of some of the better known
counting rhymes. They then had fun
trying to invent new ones. At that time the Editorial Committee of our school
gazette the Gazzetta di Cocomaro
was looking for new projects with
which to involve other schools and so it decided
to promote and organise a special competition.
In November 1995 (making use of the instructions on how
to use the Kidslink website
which they had just learnt) our schoolchildren got together and wrote a
letter inviting other Primary and Middle School pupils on the Kidslink circuit
to take part in a COMPETITION FOR INVENTING COUNTING RHYMES.
The authors of the three counting rhymes judged to be the best by the school
gazzette’s Editorial Committee would win a prize. The committee, which is
made up of a teacher and ten children, two from each class of the school,
decided that the prizes would consist of a Pippi Calzelunghe book, three Gazzetta
di Cocomaro T-shirts and three
free subscriptions to the school magazine.
Our children wrote the letter on the computer and once they had understood how
to use Kidslink and the basic
commands of the e-mail menu they transmitted the message. At the same time the
letter was also sent by traditional post to the Direzioni Didattiche (local
school boards) in Ferrara Province.
We did not have long to wait! In just over a month we received counting rhymes
from several classes in nine schools: six primary and three lower middle schools.
Of course the delivery of letters
by normal post generated more enthusiasm
than the receipt of
e-mails: letters can be touched and handled,
handwriting, drawings , colours not to mention mistakes, crossings-out
and their unique personal natures can be appreciated and commented on
more easily. Instead our children’s general reaction to the e-mails we
received was at first, one of amazement tinged with curiosity motivating a
strong desire for more and more information on the use and power of this new
means of communication.
The counting rhymes transmitted by e-mail were then printed out in large type
for easy reading. As a result our children quickly understood the advantages of
having these messages stored in the computer. In fact the convenience of the computer was plain for all to see once
we started keying in the counting rhymes for publication in the school magazine.
They were delighted to discover that you just had
to import the rhymes to the layout program and there was no need to copy
them out again. Other benefits of the PC were also discovered - formatting,
being able to paste counting rhymes in different documents, decorating them with
drawings and adapting and printing them for language games based, for example,
on the replacing of vowels.
When the Editorial Committee met to choose the prize-winners, its first task was
to read all the counting rhymes sent in. They were then read again one by one.
Committee members classified each rhyme on a points basis
from zero to three taking into account rhyme, meaning and humour. Once
the prizes had been sent off, all the counting rhymes were published in the Cocomaro
Gazzette and distributed to the participating schools:
by e-mail to schools linked
to Kidslink and by traditional postage to all the others.
Mauro Presini
Thanks to Charles Goodger for
the translation
Counting-out rhymes: home
This page was created by:
Mauro Presini, teacher at the "Bruno Ciari" Primary
School di Cocomaro di Cona (Ferrara, Italy)